Gettin' Low
If you took a Hope and Crosby "Road" picture, cut out the witty patter, the musical numbers, the outrageous location, the sense of decency and the production code, you would have Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. The question is: would you want to?
Remaining would be a zany story about two misfits—one clever, one lovable—who embark on an unlikely journey where the end never justifies the means. The humor is low-brow, but never pretends to be more. Harold and Kumar updates the formula slightly with doses of bleeding-heart social commentary (racial profiling), adolescent sexuality and potty humor.
Harold is an investment banking analyst being walked on by his co-workers. Kumar is a brilliant pre-med student reluctantly interviewing for med schools under the direction of his family. One night Harold and Kumar smoke out in their Jersey apartment and, beset with the munchies, decide that burgers from White Castle are the only thing to sate them. The two thus embark on their journey, sidetracked only by prospects of procuring more weed or women.
En route adventures include cheetah-riding, hitchhiking by an extremely horny Neil Patrick Harris and ultimately hang-gliding. Harold and Kumar learn three lessons in the process: racial stereotypes suck (even though the film plays fast-and-loose with stereotyping whites), life is all about the journey and if you can make it to White Castle, dude, you can like totally do anything.
Serious analysis of Harold and Kumar would be funnier than the movie itself, because it plays for laughs—any laughs it can get. If outrageous sex fantasies involving barely-legals tickle your funny bone, or dream-sequences with anthropomorphized bags of grass get you high, or if you can identify with life-altering bouts of the munchies, this picture will be a pleasing trip to the cinema. Harold and Kumar works its particular genre—the unserious R-rated romp—thoroughly; it's simply a matter of taste.
And thus one criticism is that the soap boxing about race and the life-altering realizations made by the two characters are unnecessary. A little silliness never hurt anyone; don't pretend it's socially significant. Whether you agree with its premises or not, Harold and Kumar could have done without its tacked-on, preachy denouement.
Remaining would be a zany story about two misfits—one clever, one lovable—who embark on an unlikely journey where the end never justifies the means. The humor is low-brow, but never pretends to be more. Harold and Kumar updates the formula slightly with doses of bleeding-heart social commentary (racial profiling), adolescent sexuality and potty humor.
Harold is an investment banking analyst being walked on by his co-workers. Kumar is a brilliant pre-med student reluctantly interviewing for med schools under the direction of his family. One night Harold and Kumar smoke out in their Jersey apartment and, beset with the munchies, decide that burgers from White Castle are the only thing to sate them. The two thus embark on their journey, sidetracked only by prospects of procuring more weed or women.
En route adventures include cheetah-riding, hitchhiking by an extremely horny Neil Patrick Harris and ultimately hang-gliding. Harold and Kumar learn three lessons in the process: racial stereotypes suck (even though the film plays fast-and-loose with stereotyping whites), life is all about the journey and if you can make it to White Castle, dude, you can like totally do anything.
Serious analysis of Harold and Kumar would be funnier than the movie itself, because it plays for laughs—any laughs it can get. If outrageous sex fantasies involving barely-legals tickle your funny bone, or dream-sequences with anthropomorphized bags of grass get you high, or if you can identify with life-altering bouts of the munchies, this picture will be a pleasing trip to the cinema. Harold and Kumar works its particular genre—the unserious R-rated romp—thoroughly; it's simply a matter of taste.
And thus one criticism is that the soap boxing about race and the life-altering realizations made by the two characters are unnecessary. A little silliness never hurt anyone; don't pretend it's socially significant. Whether you agree with its premises or not, Harold and Kumar could have done without its tacked-on, preachy denouement.
